Black Panther...are they real? See Post #1

[1morethan8]

Admin Edit-
The topic is large cats.
Felines.
The topic will not be the Black Panther Party, nor members thereof.
If you don't believe that, be the next to post about it.
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I'm 63 and have hunted all over the eastern part of Tennessee and have never seen a large black cat.
So, over the years, every time a story is told about seeing one I've always had my doubts... "Must have been a black dog, or something else?".
The other week I made a visit to Benton Shooters Supply to check over the Smiths to see about trade-ins and new. While there my wife spotted a cougar that was mounted on top of a large case and had to show it to me. I asked the guy behind the counter if he had ever seen a black one around here?
"Yeah, saw two together on Kimsey Mountain last year. One was large and the other might have been her young."

Well, I don't have to guess anymore or wonder if they are real.

About six weeks ago, I was coming home from work. I work the second shift and return home just before midnight. The lights on the Rubicon was on high as I drove over the slight rise just before you get to my driveway. When the lights settled back to the pavement, I saw what I thought was a large black dog sitting in the middle of the road. It was a large black cat! I was about 35 feet from it when it jumped the ditch on the side of the road. It looked to be around 3 1/2 foot long with a tail about 3 foot. All I could say was "Day'm!"

I thought later that it was kind'a funny. All the years that I've been in the mountains of Tennessee, North Carolina , and Georgia... and to finally see one in the road next to my yard!

Are they real? Without question... it wasn't a large black dog!!

Best at ya!
Wayne

 

[chud333]

I'd suggest nothing lighter than .357 mag
Here Kitty Kitty....

Chuck

 

[jkc]

No, they're not, at least if you're asking about the North American large cat once known as felis concolor, mountain lion, painter, panther,cougar, catamount, or as the famous Smothers Brothers bit memorialized them, vicious pumas, in crevasses..., or, as an American Handgunner magazine cover blurb once called them, "Coogers".

Melanism, the opposite, as it may be, of albinism, occurs in some feline species, notably in African and Asian leopards, and also in the Central American species felis onca, the jaguar, or, en espanol, el tigre.

But, our familiar North American mountain lion is not known to have any examples of melanism, and is typically tawny in color. Tricks of light and so forth may cause mountain lions to sometimes appear very dark, but no known specimens actually have genuinely black fur, so far as my considerable references concur.

 

[bamacisa]

They may not be real, but I saw a big black cat in the Texas hill country. We were camping and something came into our camp one night, I guess it was looking for food( we had left some food out and had were in our tents asleep) Early the next morning, I saw big black cat going up the side of a mountain by our camp site. The food that we had left out was messed up and something had eaten some of it. I don't know what it was, but it looked like a black mountain lion. It sure got my attention.

 

[patvin]

It is just like Bigfoot, you don't believe in it , until you see one youself !
R.

 

[MK]

I saw a large black jaguar up in Oklahoma back in 2007.
About the same deal as you.. I was coming back from the store
in Eufaula, and was about 1 mile from my property. I turned a corner
on the county road, and it was standing out in the middle of the road.
At first, I thought it was a Great Dane, or some other kind of large dog.
But as I got closer, I looked at it, and thought dang... that's the
weirdest looking dog I've ever seen.. Then I figured out that is was no
dog, but a large cat. It was in the daytime, and I got a real good look
at it. It was a large black Jaguar, no doubt about it. I checked pictures
on the web when I got back, and they were a spitting image to what I
saw.
It wasn't until I started looking into it, and asking around, that I found
out that these were not supposed to exist in North America.
Many told me I was crazy, and that I saw an overgrown house cat.
Right... House cats don't get to Great Dane size.. This thing was
150-200 pounds. And had a very blocky, squarish looking snout.
That was one thing that really stuck out.
When I got close, it leaped to the brush off the side of the road in
one jump, and ran off into the woods like something you would see
in Africa.
It could have been a lost pet. But... Many others claim to see these
up there, and also in other parts of the country. So I actually think
there is a breeding population of them in remote areas.
It's dense forest where I saw the one in OK.
Many claim that these black jaguars only exist in Central America,
but in researching these, I ran into writings where the Indians of
100-200 years ago were quite well aware of these black cats.
So they were native to this country years ago. The Indians considered
them as the most dangerous cat they ran across.
So I'm tending to think there have been a small population of them
all along, and due to federal laws, etc, may be making a comeback of
sorts. I'm sure not the only one that claims to see them in OK..
They have very large ranges, and the one I saw could have been
many miles away a year later. And due to the large ranges, it's
possible that some have come up through Mexico, and on up onto
the Southwest US.
No matter what the nay sayers say, I know what I saw, and it was a
large black jaguar. And jaguars are the only ones that are commonly
melanistic. "black pigment"
There are also jaguarundi that are dark, but they are smaller.
Due to the large size of the one I saw, I'm sure it was a jaguar, and
not a jaguarundi. They look a bit different also, and don't have the
same large blocky snout like a jaguar.

 

[StatesRightist]

There you go guys, don't believe your eyes, believe the "experts/books."

NC Wildlife released 1200 of mountain lions over a few years in the late 90's in the mountains of NC. You've got a better chance of getting the latest military info, than getting them to admit it though. This was part of the same program that has established the Red Wolf and Elk populations in NC.

We have a pair of them in our area and in the spring, during mating season, the newbie's/half backs are freaked. If you have never heard a mountain lion's mating call, it's memorable to say the least.

 

[Edmo]

It is just like Bigfoot, you don't believe in it , until you see one youself !
R.

Bigfoot has one for a pet...

Edmo

 

[tork'd]

whoa... where are the pictures??

 

[glowe]

I have learned to never say never from collecting S&Ws over the years and have the same thoughts when it comes to black mountain lions.

The "experts" are guessing as is everyone else. Since it is possible that this cat can exhibit melanism, never say never.

I took the DNR Wildlife Experts over 10 years before they actually confirmed cougars in Michigan. Dozens of sightings and a few pictures failed to convince the "experts" for years that this cat existed here.

 

[35Rem]

Most likely a jaguarundi.

Out west, there have been reports of jaguars, so that wouldn't surprise me. In the east, though, it's gonna be a jaguarundi.
Bobcat sized critters with the loooong swooping tail like a panther

 

[jlrhiner]

There's one laying on my bed right now.

 

[geoff40]

A number of years back here in New Hampshire, myself and 3 of my friends witnessed 2 mountain lions in broad daylight along a logging road, miles from the nearest building. This caused me to suddenly become very interested in big cats, because even to this day the State's official position is that any cats that might be getting seen are all "escaped exotic pets"; this even though nobody ever met anyone who had a pet mountain lion. Unless you knew Michael Jackson of course.
Anyway during my own little private sleuthing, I was allowed to read the entire file of sighting reports the State keeps-interesting fodder for an entity that says they aren't here. I discovered that roughly 30% of the sightings involved black panthers. Now even more curious, I was able to get the same information out of Maine soon after, lo and behold, the same, rough 30% of Maine's file was about black panthers.
So over the years, I've kept an open mind. As has been stated, supposedly there are no known examples of black, melanistic cougars in the USA, however there apparently is a strain in South America. I've never seen one of those, so I can't confirm this.
It's hard for me to believe that so many people could be so wrong. and then, there is this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOHFT9RUW3I

I don't believe a deer would stare and focus at a house cat the way this buck is looking.

 

[1morethan8]

I posted on another gun board(TN) about seeing the cat and got about the same reaction. Then one of the guys sent me a PM because he didn't want to say anything on the board. He said him and his brother had seen one early in the morning within the city limits of Chattanooga!
I could understand if only a few had been seen in a short period of time. But with the many sittings over a span of 50 years in many different locations made me wonder.
Many that have been seen are a brown or tawny color and all were much larger than a bobcat. All the black ones were large and solid black, like the one I saw.

When I talk to people from the southern Cumberland Mountains, or southern Appalachian Mountains, one thing seems to be a common thread. It's no big deal to them...
"Saw one about two years ago, haven't seen one in awhile...".
"Saw two during the blizzard of '93, pretty animal, must have had a hard time finding food?"...
Yeah, if that Rubicon had of been going faster... the biologist would need to add another chapter to their books!

 

[bgrafsr]

I went down to Florida, along with two of my three brothers to visit the fourth one. He took us out to a large ranch and as we were driving around the place, we saw a black panther run into some brush. Only got a quick glance at it before he disappeared.

 

[redneckemt]

Ask a possum cop bout big cats. Seen the tracks. And I swear I saw a small one on night sitting on a rock. Size of a bobcat but long tail. They are in Tenn.

 

[badge]

Many moons ago Jaguars were native to the SW US as well as Mexico. They do, as an earlier posted stated get too much of whatever DNA colors them so to speak and they are black. Here in Pa. we have been getting Cougar sightings for many years but Fish and Game will never admit it is possible. Me, no but I did see a Florida Panther in 1998 out in far western Palm Beach County, just west of Loxahatchee and it was beautifull.

 

[Doug M.]

I'd guess that the large black feline reported in Texas was a Jaguar. They are rare there, but possible, and if the gene is in the pool, it will sooner or later be able to be expressed, even if rarely. The wild cats are shy and elusive, so seeing one is unusual.
Escaped (or more likely abandoned) house pets: probably more common than most would expect. It is my understanding that even hand raised, the large cats are too dangerous and cranky, so they end up "disposed of".

 

[Texas Star]

I won't say there cannot be melanistic cougars, but have never seen any valid reference to them. They range from sort of reddish-brick brown to pale tawny, the terrain and subspecies being the factors.

Cougars range from Canada to Argentina, and have some minor variations, and DNA can often determine origin. I ran across a case of a Costa Rican cat in the USA. Probably an escaped pet. The body was typed by DNA.

But black leopards/panthers do get loose from pet owners. I worked for a security company that had a rural post at a ranch where a somewhat barmy lady kept a black panther, Panthera pardus, NOT a cougar! I never worked there, but other guards told me about it, and they were afraid of it. It'd get out and patrol the grounds.

I decided to load full .357 ammo in my M-66-3 if I worked there, but would do that regardless, considering the remote area.

Jaguars are chunkier than leopards and weigh as much as twice what a leopard does. Siemel killed big jaguars in the Matto Grosso region of Brazil to 400 pounds, some with his famous spear! Some are melanistic, and I once wrote part of a fan fiction that I wanted to call, "Spirit Jaguar" about one that was feared by Amazonian Indians as an evil spirit after it turned man-eater. I have definitely seen black jaguars in zoos.

If you see a melanistic jag or leopard in bright sunlight, you can usually make out the spots under the blackness of the fur. They are born in the same litters as regular spotted examples.

The jaguaurundi is smaller and has a differently shaped head and shorter legs. They also have a reddish-brown and a gray phase. I think these, ocelots, and jaguars all live in southern Texas and probably in the huge wilderness known as The Big Thicket. Many are probably transients, coming back and forth from Mexico.

Cougars/pumas definitely live here, and there have been a number of recorded attacks on humans, the most recent this Spring in a national park in West Texas. The victim's father saved the small boy by stabbing the cat with his Spyderco lockblade knife. In news photos, the blade looked to be about three-inches long, and probably did not inflict a lethal wound. The cougar escaped, and the lodge didn't want to warn guests, lest they lose business! I thought that was pretty disgusting.

Anyway, there are certainly some large black cats loose in North America. Whether they are reproducing, I can't say. But if they are, you'll probably also see normal spotted examples from some litters.

 

[crazykg85]

Here is west central Ohio we have had some similar sightings like this. Although recently a drug "kingpin" admitted he had had 2 black cats he purchased illegally (obviously). He let them into the "wild" after they killed and ate his dogs. So, yeah- we have had some farm animals get torn up around here recently.